The development of minimally invasive endoscopic surgery has resulted in a proliferation of different surgical irrigation systems. Some irrigations systems have been developed for one particular type of surgery, e.g. laparoscopic surgery as opposed to arthroscopic or hysteroscopic surgery. Other irrigation systems have been developed which include reusable and relatively costly consoles which cooperate with a disposable unit tailored for a particular surgical application.
Fundamentally, there are three principal criteria for manufacturing irrigation systems. First, the system must be easy to set up and use in the operating room. Secondly, it must provide the required pressure and flow rates. In the case of laparoscopic surgery, surgeons sometimes use a relatively high pressure flow of irrigation liquid to separate tissues (hydro-dissection); however, excessive pressure may be undesirable if the objective is simply to irrigate a surgical site. The third criterion is cost which, for obvious reasons, is a major consideration today.
The early irrigation systems were simple gravity fed devices and, later, “bag squeezers”. A bag squeezer applies pressure to the bag which contains the irrigation liquid. While the bag squeezer has the benefit of a relatively inexpensive disposable, the mechanism for squeezing the bag is relatively expensive. Moreover, conventional bag squeezers require air flow for operation and not all operating rooms have an available supply of air. The pressure provided by a bag squeezer is reasonable but it is limited by the strength of the bag which contains the irrigation liquid. An irrigation system manufactured and sold by Davol under the trademark Endo-Flo is also widely used. In the Endo-Flo irrigation system, a pump is driven by a diaphragm which is vibrated by a flow of air to pump irrigation fluid. This device is relatively inexpensive but it too requires a source of air, which is not always available.
Battery driven surgical irrigators have also been used. Representative examples of battery powered irrigators are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,484,402 and 5,807,313. These devices are convenient to use and produce a reasonable pressure, but they are expensive to manufacture. A number of devices are also known in which a disposable cartridge or cassette cooperates with a reusable console. For the most part, however, these systems require relatively expensive consoles and are not simple to set up and use in the normal operating room environment.
Objects Of The Invention
The object of the invention is provide an improved surgical irrigation system which satisfies the three criteria described above.
A more specific object of the invention is to provide an irrigation system which is virtually foolproof insofar as its installation is concerned and, in addition, relatively inexpensive insofar as the capital cost for the reusable component and the cost of the disposable are concerned.